Council split over extending Sternberg

Whether Norton Shores should extend Sternberg Road west from a Martin Road subdivision to the community's new soccer complex off Porter Road was the only controversial expenditure Tuesday of the city's proposed capital improvements for the next fiscal year.

Council members Lowell Kinney, Annoesjka Steinman and Vicki Broge suggested pulling the item from the budget, which city staff estimated will cost the city a total of $460,000 from various funds.

No one else on the nine-member council expressed opposition. Three members were absent when discussion of capital improvements occurred during Tuesday's work session on the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, so a decision was deferred until April.

Most council members have said they consider the investment important in carrying out Norton Shores' master plan for growth. That plan calls for making Sternberg a better east-west artery by eventually extending it from where it stops in Judd's Estates to Lake Harbor Drive.

Last summer, developers of the proposed 48-home Porter Woods development agreed to foot the bill for extending Sternberg from Judd's Estates to the western property line of the Porter Woods project. Water and sewer lines also will be extended.

The council has since voted, with Steinman and Kinney dissenting, to spend $42,000 on designing the next segment to be built simultaneously this summer at city expense.

That stretch of road and sewer and water lines would go from Porter Woods west to connect with the road that leads from Porter Road into the former Churchill Athletic Association property. The 40-acre parcel was deeded to the city for use as a park in 1999 and is slowly sprouting a soccer complex for the Sailor Soccer Club.

Kinney calls the Sternberg project "the road to nowhere," because although the city would like eventually to build the next link to connect Sternberg to Henry, it doesn't have the necessary easements.

"I think that's a great opportunity to save some money," Kinney said Tuesday, suggesting that $230,000 budgeted for Sternberg from capital improvement millage be scrapped and diverted to other possible expenditures.

"I would echo that," Broge said.

"My feeling is it's not going to get less expensive to do that section in future years," City Administrator Mark Meyers said.

For the complete story, return to Mlive.com or pick up a copy of Saturday's Muskegon Chronicle.